Analysis and design of an ultra-thin metamaterial absorber and its application for in-band RCS reduction of antenna

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the analysis and design of an ultra-thin metamaterial absorber (MA) for the in-band Radar Cross Section (RCS) reduction of a patch antenna. The proposed MA consists of a periodic array of double square loop structures printed on an FR4 substrate with a thickness of 0.022 λ_o. A detailed theoretical analysis of the MA unit cell is conducted to investigate the absorbing characteristics of the MA. The simulated and measured results show that MA significantly reduces the RCS of the proposed antenna within its impedance bandwidth and a maximum RCS reduction of 15 dB is achieved at 6.75 GHz. The impedance bandwidth of the proposed antenna is 6.6–7 GHz, which is also improved by the loading of the MA. The results also show that after loading the MA on the patch antenna, the RCS of the proposed antenna is significantly reduced and there is no degradation observed in its radiation properties.

KEYWORDS:

• Radar cross section (RCS)
• metamaterial absorber (MA)
• patch antenna
• in-band RCS

ORCID

Ankit Sharma http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8375-8866

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ankit Sharma

Ankit Sharma received his BTech degree in Electronics & Instrumentation Engineering in 2008 and MTech degree in Signal Processing in 2012 from Ambedkar Institute of Advanced Communication Technology and Research, Delhi, India. Currently, he is working towards his PhD degree in the field of Microwave Engineering from IIT(ISM), Dhanbad, India. His current research interests focus on RCS reduction and gain enhancement of antennas using metasurface.

Deepak Gangwar

Deepak Gangwar was born in Bareilly, UP. He received his B.Tech. degree from U.P.T.U., Lucknow in 2008, MTech degree from Guru Govind Singh Indraprastha University, Delhi in 2011 and PhD degree from Electronics Engineering Department, IIT (ISM), Dhanbad in 2017. He is currently working as an Associate Professor at the Dept. of Electronics and Communication, Bharati Vidyapeeth’s College of Engineering, New Delhi. His research areas of interest include Analysis and Design of Metamaterial-based Antennas, Ultrawide Band Antennas, Metamaterial Filters, and Frequency Selective Surfaces.

Binod Kumar Kanaujia

Binod Kumar Kanaujia is working as a Professor in the School of Computational and Integrative Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi since August 2016. Before joining Jawaharlal Nehru University, he had been in the Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, Ambedkar Institute of Advanced Communication Technologies & Research, Delhi as a Professor since February 2011 and Associate Professor from 2008 to 2011. Earlier, Dr Kanaujia held the positions of Lecturer (1996–2005), Reader (2005–2008) and Head of Department in the Department of Electronics & Communication Engineering, M.J.P. Rohilkhand University, Bareilly, India. Prior to his career in academics, Dr Kanaujia had worked as Executive Engineer in the R&D division of M/s UPTRON India Ltd. Dr Kanaujia had completed his BTech in Electronics Engineering from KNIT Sultanpur, India in 1994. He did his MTech and PhD in 1998 and 2004, respectively, from the Department of Electronics Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India. He has been awarded Junior Research Fellowship by UGC Delhi in the year 2001–2002 for his outstanding work in the electronics field. He has a keen research interest in design and modeling of the microstrip antenna, dielectric resonator antenna, left-handed metamaterial microstrip antenna, shorted microstrip antenna, ultrawideband antennas, reconfigurable, and circularly polarized antennas for wireless communication. He has been credited to publish more than 228 research articles with more than 1056 citations with h-index of 17 in several peer-reviewed journals and conferences. He had supervised 50 MTech and 15 PhD research scholars in the field of microwave engineering. He is a reviewer of several journals of international repute, i.e. IET Microwaves, Antennas & Propagation, IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, Wireless Personal Communications, Journal of Electromagnetic Wave and Application, Indian Journal of Radio and Space Physics, IETE Technical Review, International Journal of Electronics, International Journal of Engineering Science, IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagation, AEU International Journal of Electronics and Communication, International Journal of Microwave and Wireless Technologies, etc. Dr Kanaujia had successfully executed five research projects sponsored by several agencies of the Government of India, that is, DRDO, DST, AICTE, and ISRO. He is also a member of several academic and professional bodies, that is, IEEE, Institution of Engineers (India), Indian Society for Technical Education and The Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers of India.

Santanu Dwari

Santanu Dwari was born in Howrah, West Bengal, India. He received his BTech and MTech degrees in Radio Physics and Electronics from the University of Calcutta, Kolkata, West Bengal, India in the year of 2000 and 2002, respectively, and PhD degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, West Bengal, India in the year of 2009. He joined the Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines), Dhanbad, Jharkhand, India in 2008 where he is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Electronics Engineering. He has published various research papers in International Journals. His research interest includes modeling and analysis of advanced planar antenna, substrate integrated waveguide, RF planar circuits, and computational electromagnetics.